House of Fear - Part 1

A young man named Jonas stood at the doors Of the house that had haunted his dreams As behind the ornate, hand-carved oak Its interior was not all it seemed People entered the doors, then disappeared It was the last of them anyone would see So Jonas had made it his mission in life To put an end to its mystery Jonas passed through the doors and as he did The doors locked – he had no way out He took a deep breath, to calm his nerves Then he started to look about He was standing in a square hallway With a map of the house at one end A door stood each side, marked ‘IN’ and ‘OUT’ Written above ‘IN’ was a legend ‘Beware all mortals who enter this place Solve Metis’s riddles or fear you will face’ He wondered what the legend meant Faltering on going through the door And what had happened to all the souls Who had walked through this portal before? Jonas opened the door, and entered a room The door then vanished from view As there was no obvious other way out, He stopped to think for a moment or too As he thought, he took in his surroundings The room was panelled in wood as before With a large chandelier, providing the light That shone on a plinth, in the centre of the floor Seated on the plinth was a creature That filled Jonas’s bones with dread Half man, half beast with a bullish face And which, though seated, towered over his head With wizened finger, it beckoned to Jonas And with powerful voice began to speak “Who dares enter Metis’s House of Fear And what is it that you seek?”